Resellers on Surface: Yeah, go ahead and kill it. What do we care...

Canalys Channels Forum The biggest tech resellers in Europe would not mourn the demise of the Surface device should Microsoft decide to kill it off by 2019, as was recently predicted at the Canalys Channels Forum.

Industry figures including Steve Brazier, CEO at Canalys; Lenovo COO Gianfranco Lanci; and Dell president Marius Haas have all claimed the clock was ticking on Microsoft’s loss-making two-in-one PCs and that their end was nigh.

It seems those execs weren’t alone in their reckoning of Surface - Computacenter chief commercial officer Kevin James told an audience at the conference that he could understand why the prediction had been made.

“Do I agree with it? It’s a very big decision to get out of it. I talk for this room really when I say [it is] very difficult to make money out of that technology.

“Ultimately, this room is here to make money, and that’s always been strategic for us. If you can’t make money, it’s very hard to be fully behind something,” he told the resellers, integrators and distie collective.

Steinar Sønsteby, exec senior veep at Nordic-based Atea - which alongside Computacenter is the biggest reseller in Europe - said he was not sure if Microsoft would pull out of Surface but “they should”, he added.

“Yes, it’s not doing anyone [in the channel] a great deal of good [from a financial perspective.”

HP Inc and Dell both started selling Surface directly to their clients back in late 2015. HP told The Reg that it hadn’t sold the products in great volumes and that was based on customer demand.

Microsoft told us previously that “Surface continues to drive category growth and redefine the way people create, learn and work. You’ll see us continue to innovate and create devices that offer users new and impactful experiences”. ®